


lessons learned

by LiveLaughLovex



Category: The Code (TV 2019)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, F/M, Gen, Introspection, Past John "Abe" Abraham/Alex Hunt, Past Relationship(s), Post-Canon, Pre-Canon, Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-23
Updated: 2020-10-23
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:34:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27163234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LiveLaughLovex/pseuds/LiveLaughLovex
Summary: He learned a long time ago that life was unfair and random, that sometimes buildings fell from the sky, and planes flew through walls - through people - and grieving sons were forced to grow up far faster than they should have to.
Relationships: John "Abe" Abraham/Harper Li
Kudos: 4





	lessons learned

John Abraham spent a majority of his life feeling his luck had run completely out when he was sixteen. It was that year that, on an otherwise average Tuesday morning, his father - _his dad_ , the man who'd survived Vietnam as one of the youngest officers in the Corps' history and had made it out of Desert Storm with nothing worse than a busted-up leg - died stateside, sitting at a desk in one of the most secure buildings the country had to offer. 

He still remembered the funeral, remembered wanting to scream and shout and throw things when people told his mother, again and again, how it wasn't fair. He wanted to say so many things, tell them that _of course_ it was unfair. There wasn't a fair world in existence where buildings fell from the sky, or where planes flew through walls and through people. There was nothing fair about three children too young to _vote_ being asked to bury their father, nor about grieving sixteen-year-old sons being asked to grow up too fast. Nothing about any of it - life, the world - was actually fair. It was far too early for him to be so accepting of that, but, nonetheless, he was. 

He went to the Naval Academy two years later, graduated at the top of his class. He became a Marine. He went and fought the same war, _twice_ , and he nearly died, alone in a field. Some of his friends _did_ suffer that fate. Others suffered one much worse. He was told he'd never be an active-duty Marine again, and there was a part of him - the part of him that could far too easily recall the look on his mother's face on the day of his father's death, and could just as clearly see the vestiges of that same pain in her eyes each time he shipped out - was grateful for it. 

He took Jason Hunt's advice and went to law school. He adapted. He overcome. He left Afghanistan behind him, but the ghosts he'd found them followed him everywhere he went. When he was thirty-three, he was given the displeasure of adding another name to that list. As he stood there, holding Maggie Hunt as her mother - Jason's wife, Jason's _widow_ \- tried to calm her inconsolable sister, he was reminded of another father. Another funeral. Another moment in which nothing ~~seemed~~ _was_ fair. 

He grieved for Jason by sleeping with the man's widow. He tried to convince himself Jason would be alright with it. He was kidding himself. Jason had considered him a brother. Brothers didn't go around sleeping with each other's wives. Not if they both wanted to emerge intact. Not if they both wanted to _keep being brothers_. 

Still, it took a while for him to stop lying to himself. He did break up with Alex, once, but it didn't take. She was too stubborn for her own good ( _Jason loved that about her, you know,_ a voice in the back of his head that it was getting harder to ignore told him, over and over again), and he was too lonely, too desperate for love or salvation or something else she couldn't truly offer him, to turn her away. He wondered if that made him weak, broken, or just plain-old awful. 

He was arrested, at one point. Everyone told him it wasn't fair, that it wasn't a just trial. He didn't agree with that. There were plenty of things he deserved to be put on trial for, more than could ever be outlined by any court reporter. They didn't believe him. Maya and Trey both saw him as too good to just be left to rot. They chose to rescue him, from himself more than anything. They won the cases. They got the charges dropped, and suddenly, he was sleeping in his own bed again. It was the strangest thing, realizing he still didn't feel free, even after the shackles were gone. It didn't seem fair. Then again, maybe after everything he'd asked people to endure for him, he didn't really deserve fair anymore. Maybe... well, maybe he never had. 

One day, not long after his release, he glanced over at Alex as she flipped pancakes onto a plate for Danny, and all he could see was the girl from the photograph Jason had always carried around in his breast pocket, up and down every road they ever traveled in Afghanistan. He'd called her his good luck charm, Abe remembered; he'd kissed that photograph before every mission. He'd talked about his wife, about his little girl. They'd been everything to him. Most importantly to Abe, though, they'd been his. They'd been Jason's. The world had already taken Jason's life from him. Abe couldn't carry on claiming his friend's place as though the other man had never existed. And so, for the very first time since he'd made his way up to her bedroom, all those months ago, he did what was right, fair, and just. He left. 

He was still in the process of piecing himself back together when Harper returned home from Maine. She was brighter, lighter than she'd been before. She laughed more freely; her smile lit up her entire face. She spent more time around him than before, inviting him out for drinks, out to dinner. He knew she was checking up on him. He couldn't bring himself to call her out on it, was all. He liked being around her. When he was... well. When he was, everything felt right, and fair, and just. Everything felt like it belonged. He felt like he belonged. 

When he finally asked her out, it was an otherwise average Tuesday morning. When she smiled, and she said _yes_ without even pausing to think about it, Abe found himself finally able to accept that no, life was not always fair. That didn't mean it couldn't be _good_ , anyway. 


End file.
